With a great flapping, another bird landed beside the first.
“He won’t come any closer,” Jeremiah said from behind me.
I clutched my chest. “Jeremiah Dawson! What’ve I told you about stalkin’ up on me so quiet like?”
“Those are crows. The Ute think they’re a bad omen.” Jeremiah waved to the old Indian, then followed me inside.
Unease had been building in me all day. An unsettled feeling crept slowly into my bones and it all started with the dream I couldn’t quite remember. “What do you think?”
“That old man knew what we were from the first time he set eyes on us. If he thinks those birds are bad magic, I’m inclined to believe they are too. I want you to stay inside for the rest of the day.”
“What’re you going to do?”
He tipped his hat and opened the door. “Shoot the crows.”
His plan to shoot the crows sounded fantastic up until the point I realized he planned on aiming a pistol in the general vicinity of the house he’d just confined me to. At the first shot I slithered right on to the furthermost room, which happened to be Jeremiah’s. In all these long months, I’d never actually been in his bedroom. It was tidy with a bed and small chest of drawers under his washbasin.
What caught my eye was what stood beside the empty bowl and pitcher. There, just to the right of it, stood a framed photograph. A light haired woman stared back at me from behind the glass. I couldn’t tell exactly what color her hair and eyes were in the black and white picture, but she was quite a stunning woman—high-bred to be sure with a pretty set to her nose and lips. This must’ve been Anna.
Another shot rang out.
“I wish you were here,” I whispered to the photograph.
With the picture clutched tightly to my chest, I imagined their relationship. Jeremiah didn’t laugh much anymore, but maybe he used to before he was broken. Definitely, she would’ve been the opposite of me to catch his interest, but was she funny? Quiet? Did she have the iron will Jeremiah seemed to demand from the people he surrounded himself with?
When the front door opened, I rushed to put the picture back where I’d found it. I didn’t know if he would mind me touching her, but I didn’t want to test him to find out. If he knew, like he did in the uncanny way he seemed to know everything that went on, he didn’t let on as I floated into the kitchen.
“Weather’s lettin’ up. The roads might actually be passable in a day or two.”
Well that sounded like the greatest news I’d ever received right there. One more week holed up with his bad mood and I’d probably just let his wolf in one night out of desperation.
“I’m changing after we eat, so don’t go outside.”
Eh, it was downright creepy when he read my thoughts like that. Another boring night it would be, all alone and working on my needle point. I was beginning to fervently wish something exciting would happen.
The night passed filled with more dreams I couldn’t grasp and a deranged wolf clawing at the house. When, by the next morning, Jeremiah was sound asleep in his bed and we weren’t covered in pox or locusts or the like, I began to think the crows didn’t hold any black magic after all.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Luke
My ears were so strained for the sound of a carriage, I managed to completely tune out the pounding hooves below me. My horse, the fifth that’d carried me so far, was slowing and it was only a matter of time before he was too exhausted to keep up the speed I needed.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep draw of air. I might’ve been only imagining it, but the scent of human was there if just barely.
There was no way to tell if the Hell Hunters were in front of or behind me, but the urgency of my instincts said it was going to be close. They would’ve taken the train as far as Denver before jumping a carriage, and whether a four horse team pulled it or six, it made a difference when we were this close in our race to get to Kristina and Jeremiah.
I was weak, and weary, and hungry from the journey, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was the vision of my family engulfed in flames. For the uncountable time, I calculated each of our journeys.
It’d be close. It’d be so close.
I steered my horse at an angle to connect with the road that would lead us into Colorado Springs. There were fresh tracks and divots in the snow, but they could be from the stagecoach delivering mail and supplies, or perhaps another carriage full of passengers traveling while the weather was fair and the roads passable.
I had a plan, and as the outline of the town stood out against the waning evening light, that idea became more defined. The horse under me chugged breath and slowed more.
“I’m sorry, fella. Almost there and then you can rest.” White frothy sweat lathered his neck where the reins touched his skin despite the cold. I’d run him longer than I should have, but it couldn’t be helped. There weren’t many towns to trade up between here and Denver and the invisible clock in my head that tick-tock, tick-tocked time away wouldn’t let me rest him.
Though the streets were nearly empty, a few townspeople flitting here and there jumped out of my way as I came barreling through town. At the water trough in front of the general store, I slid off of the exhausted horse and didn’t even bother to tie him up. The extra second couldn’t be wasted.
I wasn’t going to be able to take on the Hell Hunters alone. I needed another gunman and no human I knew could sling a pistol quite as well as Elias. Boots skidding across the ice, I barreled down on his door, pounding my fists until the bones in my hands rattled. When nobody answered, I pushed open the door and looked frantically around. Elias and Trudy’s dinner sat half-eaten, and their lantern still flickered against the shadows that crept through the darkening window. Where could they be?
On the porch, I searched in vain. Barely a soul walked the main street and shopkeepers had turned their closed signs early. There wasn’t time to look for Elias in a ghost town.
I’d have to use plan B. The lanterns were still on outside the jailhouse at the end of the street. Through the window, Sheriff Eugene Hawkins leaned into his chair and read over paperwork by candlelight.
Kristina once told me to own my secrets. I sure hoped she was right.
When I threw the door open, the sheriff stood and in one fluid motion, had a pistol aimed at my chest.
The old wooden door groaned against the cold weather as I closed it gently. “I need your help.”
“Why would I help a cattle thief?”
“Has anyone strange showed up in town today?”
The tightening of the wrinkles around his eyes was enough of an answer.
“When?” I asked. “When!”
“Thirty minutes ago. Rough looking crowd in a black carriage. Blasted straight through town and headed up the road your way.”
“My brother and I ain’t never asked anything of this town, Sheriff. You know that. But I need your help now.”
He leaned against the table and his eyes grew as sharp as a snake’s. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you brung to this town, boy, but I ain’t helpin’ you wiggle out of it.”
I slammed my fist on the desk and let the power of the wolf take over my eyes. Sheriff Hawkins was staring at his end. The smell of his fear was pungent and bitter.
“I don’t have time to argue. I need an extra gun. You know what I am, and if you help me save my family tonight, I’ll pledge to the law. When you need help someday, and you will, I’ll owe you. I’m faster and stronger, and I’ll get you back home to your woman alive.”
“Why would I trust a thief?”
There wasn’t time to persuade him. My wolf was howling to go. “Every animal we hunted from other rancher’s herds, we didn’t mean to. And slowly, over time, we’ve replaced every one of them without those ranchers being the wiser. Murphy just jumped the gun before we could make it right. Have you ever known me to murder a man?”
Hawkins eyebrows shot straight into his hairline.
&nb
sp; “Who didn’t deserve it,” I clarified.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t be the law in this town and be helping the likes of you.”
The wolf lunged inside, but the rest of me was perfectly still. I was out of time. I turned for the door and as the cold whipped against my face, urging me to stay inside and stay alive, I turned in the lantern light. “I wasn’t asking for me. I was asking for my woman. She’s an innocent.” I slammed the door as consuming frustration escaped through my fingertips.
I’d have to go this alone if I wasn’t already too late. If the sheriff wasn’t going to help stop a bunch of renegades from murdering and unsullied member of his town, the least he could do was lend me his damned horse.
Up and riding again on the fresh mount, I broke for the tree line. I’d have to take it in a straight line and avoid the road if I was going to make it in time. The horse gave me more speed and through the drawing dark, I listened for the screams of my betrothed.
It wouldn’t be long now.
****
Kristina
I’d promised Jeremiah a pot roast if he never mentioned a marriage proposal again, and tonight, I was finally keeping my word. Four floofed in the air as I coated a bear meat rump roast in it. While it set on the table, I filled the cast iron pot with the spices that smelled good with it. Basil, oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, and when water had been added and stirred, quartered onions, peeled carrots and the smallest of our whole potatoes from the cold root cellar went into the pot as well. I sprinkled the floured roast with some of the dry mixture as well before browning it in the other iron skillet the kitchen boasted. When it was boiling away, I poked at the wood in the stove until it was an acceptable temperature.
I stood by with my hands on my hips and frowned. Hopefully I’d done the recipe just like Trudy said. I wasn’t experienced with cooking bear.
Outside, the snow was still as the wind died down to nothing as suddenly as it had come in on the dark storm clouds. Not even the leaves on the trees stirred, and through the woods came Jeremiah on his horse that was as dark as the coming night. He paused and turned his head to the side until I could see a perfect profile. Not a muscle moved on the man until he reached back and rubbed his neck again. He’d been doing that a lot throughout the day. The gesture left me downright edgy. Nothing surprised that old wolf.
With a gentle kick to his mount, he rode for the house once again and I returned to the kitchen to place a cloth over the rising yeast rolls. He came in a few minutes later, stomping his boots until little clumps of snow skittered across the wooden floorboards.
“You already put your horse up for the night?” I asked in surprise.
“He’s in the barn but he’s still saddled. Something just don’t feel right today. For my own peace of mind, I want him ready to go.”
Pity. I’d hate to wear a saddle all night long if I were a horse. “Where’ve you been all day?”
“Burning the crows.”
A chilly breeze brushed against my forearms, but when I checked, the windows were all firmly closed. “Not on Dawson land, I hope.”
He shook his head. “Rode them out into the wilderness, far away from here and far away from the Ute.”
My voice caught. “How many were there?”
“Seventeen.”
Seventeen crows all landed on the roof to caw their last chilling word. My appetite was waning by the moment. “Dinner won’t be done for a while yet—”
“Shhh,” he hissed with a finger by his lips. His shadow colored eyes were wide as he searched for something far away and not of this world. He’d frozen into place like the garden statues I’d seen near the fancy houses of Chicago.
A shiver of excitement snaked up my spine. Maybe it was him. At long last, maybe Luke had returned to me.
“It’s a four horse team. I can hear the jingle of the harnesses. The weight sounds deeper than a buggy. It has to be a carriage,” Jeremiah breathed. “They’re comin’ and they’re comin’ in fast.”
“Luke wouldn’t come here in a carriage,” I said in a small voice. My heart slid down to the space between the soles of my shoes and the floorboards. No one I knew would come here in anything more than a buggy.
“Get your jacket on and be quick about it,” he said in a hunter’s quiet voice while he checked the load in his pistol.
The cloth I’d been holding floated to the ground and I bolted for my room. With my jacket on, I turned at the door. Doubling back, I snatched Luke’s letter from inside of the pillow case and shoved it in the pocket of my dress. Something told me I’d need it tonight.
Jeremiah stood on the front porch with the door standing so far open, the cold air rushed in, setting a chill to war with the warmth from the hearth. From the space beneath his arm, the road was visible in the moonlight. Dark treads of the buggy were the only things that separated the road from pasture under the snow. Even I, with my insensitive human ears, could hear them coming now. Four horses as white as the snow thundered through the trees, pulling a carriage as black as tar.
“Kristina, go out the back door and run for the woods. I’ll come find you if I’m able.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer in here?” My whispered voice trembled.
As fast as a flash of lightning, he turned and clutched my arms so hard I gasped in pain. “Whatever you do, do not let them bring you back in the house. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “Come with me,” I pleaded. I didn’t know who that carriage housed, but there was fear behind the mirrored lantern light in Jeremiah’s eyes.
“I have to hold them off to give you some time. Go now!” His impossibly strong hands shoved me toward the back door.
Catching myself, I threw it open and flew down the stairs. The unblemished snow made a chawing noise under my shoes. Crunch, crunch, crunch came the frantic sound as I ran for the tree line. I was safer in the woods with all of the trees to hide me, but I’d do as Jeremiah said and run until he found me again. Faster and faster I pushed my legs until they tired and slowed. A horse’s trumpet echoed off of the trees but when I turned, not a leaf stirred.
They were coming for me. I just couldn’t see them yet.
With a yelp, I slid waist deep into a snow bank and scrambled to right myself. Pulling at the gnarled roots of an old pine tree, I slowly gained ground against the frosted pins of cold that clawed at my bare legs under my dress. I imagined bony hands reaching up for me from the grave I’d fallen into, clawing and dragging me down to hell. Panicked, I kicked and tore myself free and ran toward the moon that sat low in the sky. This way, it seemed to beckon me.
Hoof beats pounded the ground, but I couldn’t see anyone. Suddenly, there was a great white horse and a man shrouded in darkness so close I couldn’t move out of the way fast enough to save myself.
Like a jouster in some medieval game, he charged me and I screamed as some blunt wooden object hit me at full force in the chest. I couldn’t think about anything but sucking air into my drowning lungs. I clawed feebly and lifted myself to all fours, but escape fell secondary to breathing. Choked and strangled sounds pushed from my throat and suddenly my hair was wrenched backward, stretching my tender neck until surely it would snap.
The creature in the black hooded shroud pulled my head back until the light of the moon caressed the frail skin of my throat.
“Breathe, girl,” the creature hissed. “You can’t die like this. We have plans for you.”
Acute and blinding terror froze my limbs into place and as I drew a shallow breath, the monster pulled his cloak back. A man’s face appeared out of the darkness. His hair was shaved to smoothness, and his skin was pallid. Four long scars ran from forehead to chin like he’d been clawed by an animal, and the eye that had been run through stared back at me with a milky white film over it. His teeth were snaggled, and the ones that remained were the rotten color of dried, overripe wheat.
I fought like some wild thing, flailing and kicking at anything solid. He turned and dragged
me by the hair to his waiting horse. The pain was shocking as each strand on my head started to release its grip in my scalp. I screamed and screamed with every ounce of breath I possessed, but a slow and chilling chuckle was all the reaction that came from the man.
My knife. The Derringer rested on my bedroom dresser, but the knife still sat in my dress pocket. Getting to it meant releasing my desperate grip on his hands to ease the pain in my head, but it’d be worth it to live. The handle was warm against my palm, and in a motion that at once loosed it from its leather sheath and thrust it upward, I sliced the man’s arm where he held me.
His yell sounded pained and surprised and I thrust again before he could move to stop me. All I could reach from my disadvantaged position on the ground was his leg just above the knee. Screaming, he pulled the knife out and smashed the hilt of it against my temple.
I held onto the moon as long as I could while the edges of my vision crumpled in on itself. Smaller and dimmer the moonlight grew until I gasped with relieving the effort, and gave into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Luke
I’d arrived just in time to watch them die.
Jeremiah, whose face was bloodied and swollen, was already noosed to a tree with a fidgeting white horse under him. A Hell Hunter trotted out of the tree line behind the house with Kristina flung limply across his horse’s withers. A thin line of blood trailed down the white coat of the horse where her head rested and I covered my mouth to stifle the anguished sound that threatened to come from it.
I lay on my belly in the snow, loading my Peace Makers. If they were dyin’ tonight, then I was goin’ with them.
Evelynn French must’ve found us a real threat to send five Hell Hunters after us. If that woman had been anything, she’d been thorough. One was hauling Kristina into the house, the second was pouring what smelled like lantern oil across the outside. Another was checking the noose around Jeremiah’s throat while a man with his back to me stood on foot holding the prancing hang horse, and the last of the hunters stood lookout. It was him who was close enough.